Not a nickel in my pocket!

I am truly, sincerely, and humbly grateful for everyone who has contributed to our "Chug" campaign. We have 3 nerve-racking days ahead as we see if we can get this television show fully funded. If we don't reach $500,000 by 11:59pm on May 31st, no one is charged, and we don't get a cent.

On the plus side, Kickstarter statistics show that most people wait until the last day or two to contribute. So, there is still a chance that we'll meet our goal, and my new grey hairs and elevated blood pressure will be all for not.

Over 4,400 people have taken the time and initiative to back our endeavor. I've been trying to come up with a way to further reward our backers further, but there's a fine line between rewarding and using up the money that will actually get the show made.

Someone posted on my Facebook yesterday questioning how it could possibly costs $100,000 per episode to "follow you around with a camera". I explained to him that $500,000 six ways is actually $83,000. But, there is also a 5% cut that Kickstarter takes and another 5% that Amazon takes to handle the thousands of transactions. And, we have to fulfill all of our obligations to you, the Kickstarter backers. We'll still have to buy, print, and ship thousands of t-shirts, hoodies, medallions, posters, DVDs, Blu Rays, as well as the travel, food, and venue rentals for the dinners and parties that we'll be doing in LA, NYC, and Chicago.

And while that may still be a lot of money to have a camera follow a guy around to bars, it's a very small budget to make an actual network quality TV show. With Chug, as we did with Three Sheets, we'll have over a month of planning and pre-production where the producers will need to lock down locations, hire fixers (international translators and location scouts), get shooting permits, carnets (certificates that allow us to ship our gear in and out of the country), coordinate travel, and get insurance (which alone is about $25,000). Then, while shooting, there are: two camera guys, (with expensively rented cameras, gear, and lights), a sound guy, (with expensive rented gear), two producers, and the executive producer. This is aside from hidden daily costs like the flights, rental cars, train tickets, hotels, per diem, and food. Then, as we'll end up with dozen of hours of raw footage, we'll need to hire editors, assistant editors, a post production supervisor, motion graphics animator, writer, and producers to put the show together. And, during the several months that the production will be on-going, all of those people will obviously need to be paid… except me.

The money raised by Kickstarter, in fact, won't be enough to fund Chug. No money that comes in from the Kickstarter campaign will go into my pocket.I'll actually be putting in my own money to get the show made to the quality that you should expect from a TV show. The fact is that I am gambling on the idea that I can sell Chug to a network after the show is made and after the Kickstarter backers have all been given their rewards. Even though they've all said "no" already, I have faith that some network will see what an amazing show we've made, be surprised by the dedicated fan base, and hire us to make more episodes. That's my contribution and dedication to the show.

For my contribution to you, everyone who pledges $350 or more will get a credit in the show and we will personally thank you in an upcoming podcast. With some help from the show's co-hosts, I will read each of your names in a long thank you segment. Perhaps more importantly, your names will be in every episode of the ending show credits on the digital downloads, DVDs, and Blu Rays. I'd love to be able to make that available to everyone, but I have to give it a reasonable limit.

For everyone who has backed us with $25 or more, I can assure you that all of the six episodes of Chug that you will see will be amazing. I am working with Mike Kelly, the executive producer of Three Sheets, to make this show better than anything that we've done. "The Producer's Cut" version of the show that you will get will be longer, and more of an adventure than what would ever end up on a half hour (22 minutes with commercials) episode on television.

Thank you for your continued support and for telling your friends about Chug. Every dollar gets us closer to our goal.

You can share this link with people that will bring them directly to the Kickstarter page: http://chug.tv

I would gladly give more to the show if I could! Anyone who doubts the caliber of show that will be produced only needs to know it has Zane Freakin' Lamprey in it! I can't wait to see the finished episodes and any network not smart enough to pick it up is a network I don't need to watch! Jim Glen has it right.... Zane Lamprey is PRICELESS!

Well said Zane too bad you did not post about this earlier for people to understand how many levels of cost go into a show and the cost of Kickstarter and Amazon. Good Luck I have already pledged but in the past for Kickstarter I have always pledged on the last day so, you are right about last minute pledges.

I was surprised you could make 6 episodes (minus fees and what not) with ONLY $500,000... If I could give more I would. It's just a good thing that both my wife and I are huge fans, otherwise I might have gotten in trouble for dropping a G as it was! We've both been Facebooking and telling all our drunk friends (we tell them when they're sober...) to pledge as often as is annoying. We hope, we hope!